2016/06/30 by Clay Cordova, Clay Córdova, Davide Gaiotto +1 · 1 citation
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Boundary (topology) #Computation #Conformal map #Conjecture #Gauge (firearms) #Gauge theory #Line (geometry) #Orbifold #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #Variety (cybernetics) #hep-th #math.RT
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/jhep11(2016)106
63 pages + appendices, 15 figures. v2 published version, references added, representations of SO(8) Kac-Moody discussed
openalex created_date 2016/07/22 · openalex publication_date 2016/11/01 · arxiv created 2017/05/26 · arxiv updated 2017/05/29 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
We conjecture a formula for the Schur index of four-dimensional N=2 theories in the presence of boundary conditions and/or line defects, in terms of the low-energy effective Seiberg-Witten description of the system together with massive BPS excitations. We test our proposal in a variety of examples for SU(2) gauge theories, either conformal or asymptotically free. We use the conjecture to compute these defect-enriched Schur indices for theories which lack a Lagrangian description, such as Argyres-Douglas theories. We demonstrate in various examples that line defect indices can be expressed as sums of characters of the associated two-dimensional chiral algebra and that for Argyres-Douglas theories the line defect OPE reduces in the index to the Verlinde algebra.